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Who: Me, starring as a carefree party animal of today and classy professional woman of tomorrow

Where: Hip/young apartment complex in middle Tennessee

When: Standing still, if only for a moment while I live my young life to the fullest – eh hem, night

With fervor for life and a carefully composed “sext” in draft waiting to be sent to my puka-shell wearing love interest Brett, I jaunted through the door of the on-site laundry facilities at my hip/young apartment complex, and out into my oyster world. Mesh pop-up hamper in hand, because I’m far too youthful to be dragged down by some dowdy wicker basket, I was met by the overwhelming certainty that it is only when you are young and borderline-attractive, that life is worth living.

Just as my mental focus shifted from thoughts of gin body shots to how to get the perfect Snooky poof, the scent of Downy April Fresh dryer sheets permeated by nostrils. Overwhelming to my senses, I feared I might trip over my toe ring and scrape my fresh spray tan on the hip/young pavement outside the building. Utilizing chic yoga breathing methods I regained my

balance. Carefree and reckless, I shrugged the incident off with a giggling sigh. Silly, me. Just enjoying my youth too much!

As I skipped back to my apartment, limber in limbs and life, I felt a slight tickling sensation in my left nostril. The scent of Downy had not run away with my dreams and wild imagination, but had instead initiated some sort of Rave in my nose. Always ready for a party, I welcomed the sensation with a double-handed finger heart formation, and began to think of all the positive, life-affirming tweets I could send to my peeps when I finally returned to my iPad.

But as I took my first step onto the

sidewalk outside of my building, the Downy took over me like the recreational line of coke I did earlier with my friend, Bella. Suddenly my body was in the hands of God, my muscles tensing, and my eyes closing, unable to avoid the inevitable.

Sneeze.

Gasp.

What just happened?

I stood still on the pavement in a silent terror, the only sound my Katy Perry ringtone indicating the start of the newest episode of Jersey Shore. But I could focus on “the shore” no more. There was wetness. A minimal, miniscule, barely noticeable feeling of wetness. Had I…? I looked down at my terry cloth shorts. I couldn’t have…

Anxious, I rushed into my apartment, dropping my keys and running to the bathroom. I pulled my leopard-print thong down to my knees, revealing not only my stunning bikini wax, but a slight trace of urine on the white padding of my panties.

During a recent conversation with anonymous family members, I was discussing a human being we all know well. The kind of human being we all dislike with varying levels of intensity, and who can only be described as one thing:

The sort of person who folds his toilet paper.

Yes. This is a category, an adjective, a stereotypical description with which I judge people. But let’s look at this more deeply and examine why, oh heaven’s why would someone do this.

When I was a wee child, filled with child-like urine and child-like feces I did not know how to take a child-like dump in the appropriate way. An older woman who briefly served as a babysitter took the time to explain how and why it is important to fold toilet paper as oppose to crumpling it.

“Do you see these wittle lines?” she asked me in a goo-goo ga-ga voice that made me want to choke on a kidney stone even at the wittle wage of 3. “You fold the toilet paper on these wittle lines.”

Seated on her pink pastel toilet seat in a cramped bathroom that smelled like peanut butter, swinging my legs and staring at her, I couldn’t help but wonder why I would take the time to fold toilet paper when I could just crumple it in my hand and go to town. But I was young. I was impressionable. I had yet to be scorned by love or overly taxed by the government. I wanted and chose to believe that this was the proper and only way to clean one’s behind after a substantial trip to the loo.

After this babysitter was fired, no doubt for indoctrinating me with such inconsequential life lessons, I slowly broke free of this tendency. I can only assume that since I am a marginally normal human being I am not the only person who crumples instead of folds. Still, having the knowledge that there is such a population that does this, I feel equipped to make judgments as to what this habit means.

So when discussing this human being that myself and my anonymous family members all dislike with varying levels of intensity, I had an epiphany. I knew what was wrong with him. It was all clear. He is, after all, the sort of person that folds his toilet paper.

What does this mean? Well scooch back into the center of your seat and I will tell you. The sort of person who folds his/her toilet paper is the sort of person who cross categorizes their allergy medications by season, color, and alphabetical order. They take 42 minutes to vacuum a 9 square foot room. They fancy themselves experts on your career, emotions, and underwear size. They will never be wrong, but never say they are right. They will dust the surface blades of a ceiling fan.

More flattering, they will always know where the keys are and will never forget to check the mail though they will certainly criticize you for receiving junk mail from Kuntz Insurance Group (a real business I plan to become a patron of).

On the flipside, crumplers are not the beautiful specimens of perfection you may imagine. Though we donate more frequently to charitable causes, juggle phallic shaped vegetables with ease, and can correctly identify all of the members of ABBA, crumplers have difficulty paying bills on time and cannot read a newspaper article without asking for the definition of at least one multisyllabic word.

Still I would rather be stupid and a talented juggler than someone who quotes Proust for fun. Is it fair to make such generalizations? One word. Yes. For all of my flaws – my haphazard flossing techniques, Parkinson’s style penmanship, and misguided understanding of months of the year underwear – I would never take myself so seriously as to actually practice such arbitrary habits.

Think of the precious seconds lost, LOST by participating in this madness. In the amount of time it takes to fold toilet paper one could tear open a packet of Splenda for an amputee. End a relationship via text. Steal a library book. Talk about a lack or productivity among this population of humanity!

For this reason I am proud to stand here today (or sit seated in a coffee shop and type) that I am the sort of person that crumples, yes CRUMPLES her toilet paper. Am I glorifying this technique? Of course. But do I wish to alienate the folders of the world? Pshhhh…..maybe I shouldn’t answer that.

Either way, there are certainly several very prominent figures in our society who I would bet the four pennies in my pocket on being folders instead of crumplers. Some of these misguided individuals include:

Ben Stein

Bill Pullman

Meg Ryan

Carmelo Anthony

Nikki Hilton

and

Bo Obama

So I turn this back onto you fair reader(s). Am I the misguided one? Am I an unsanitary dreg of society? Do I deserve to be stripped of my right to vote and wear white after Labor Day?